Effective writing strategies for students with Emotional Behavioral Disorders

Writing is one of the most important parts of communication that most people use every day.  Many students with emotional behavior disorders struggle in both academic and social domains.  This week’s module is about students with emotional behavioral disorders, I chose an article that addresses effective writing strategies to help these students reach independence.  In this blog I will summarize the article, discuss the teaching strategies, and critique the article.

This article researches Self-Regulated Strategy Development, or SRSD with a groups of students with EBD.  The author found that students with EBD are easily frustrated and have difficulty maintaining engagement in academic activities.  Research found that students with EBD are often two grade level behind their peers academically.  Next, the article talks about the best practices in writing and how to implement the SRSD writing process.  Improving the writing of students with EBD requires systematic, strategic instruction that addresses not only their cognitive needs but also affective and behavioral strengths and weaknesses, concurrently (Bak & Asaro-Saddler, 2013).

The first stage in the process is developing background knowledge, in this stage, the teacher explains the strategy and how it will help the writer.  For instance, the teacher will hold a discussion with the students about the genre of writing and the elements that accompany it.  The next stage in the process is the Discuss It stage.  During the Discuss It stage, the teacher explains the steps and components of the writing strategy.  Also, the teacher explores the students’ attitudes and beliefs about their writing and introduces self-talk, self-reinforcement, and self-monitoring.  The third stage of the process is the Model It stage, in this stage the teacher works through an entire task while thinking aloud to emphasize each step of the strategy.  The next stage is the Memorize It stage, this is the stage where the students memorize the steps of the genre specific prompt.  The fifth stage is the Support It stage, in this stage the students and the teacher collaborate to set goals for their writing.  The final stage in the process is the Independent Performance stage, in this stage the student engages in planning, composing, reviewing, and evaluating work using the strategy and self-regulatory behaviors.  After the authors explain the stages, they discuss the benefits of implementing this process in the classroom. 

According to Bak and Asaro-Saddler’s (2013), implementation of these practices in school environments, individually or in combination with other practices, contributes to increased student engagement in lessons and the demonstration of prosocial and on-task behavior.  The practices include consistent procedures, increased opportunities to respond, teacher praise, self-management, and mediated scaffolding.  Furthermore, the SRSD model follows consistent instructional procedures, regardless of what is being taught.  Finally, because students with EBD are often exposed to a fragmented education due to unstable placements, consistent approaches to the writing process may help students with EBD maintain or elevate their academic progress in the area of writing (Bak & Asaro-Saddler, 2013).    

Next, I will discuss my experience about working with students with EBD and teaching writing to these students.  I have been working as a paraprofessional and substitute at an alternative school for students with emotional behavior disorders for five years, two of the years I worked at the school, I was paired with an English teacher.  In the classroom, this teacher used a similar writing process called the 6 plus 1 writing traits.  Similar to the SRSD process the 6+1 traits used background knowledge, discussion, modeling, and self-review.  I thought that the 6+1 and the SRSD writing processes are very useful for helping students become independent writers.  Also, I feel that both writing processes engage students and provide the correct amount of teacher guidance for students to be successful. 

                Finally, I will critique this article and the SRSD writing process model.  Overall, I found this article to be informative and useful.  I feel the consistency, teacher modeling, and engagement is very critical for students with EBD.  Students with EBD have low tolerance for frustration and writing can frustrating to all students.  I feel that the scaffolding of this process can help lower frustration levels, and help students gain confidence which will turn into independence.  Also, the author addressed how this writing process could be used with PBIS prompts and the students can use the process to write about prosocial topics.  I thought that the research in this article was well thought out and planned and the author was thorough in the implementation section of the article.

                In conclusion, the article Self-Regulated Strategy Development for Students With Emotional Behavioral Disorders, was well written and thoroughly researched.  I would recommend this article to teachers in general education classrooms and special education classrooms.            

References

Bak, N., & Asaro-Saddler, K. (2013). Self-Regulated Strategy Development for Students with           Emotional Behavioral Disorders. Beyond Behavior, 22(3), 46-53.